


you smiled (and then the spell was cast)

by bubblesodatea



Series: Oh My God, They Were Coworkers [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Oh my god they were coworkers, San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast Tech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27763516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblesodatea/pseuds/bubblesodatea
Summary: There are three things in life Felix Fraldarius absolutelycannot stand:1) Bumbling out-of-towners2) Bonding with people3) The fact that his favorite Boba place relocated from Chinatown to the Marina District, meaning that his commute is a whole extra twenty minutes whenever he wants tea.The new girl (with her huge eyes, Midwestern accent, and tasteful chunky-knit infinity scarf), seems to be his first two greatest annoyances personified—Yet, Felix can’t help but want to get to know her better.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Oh My God, They Were Coworkers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071344
Comments: 28
Kudos: 71





	you smiled (and then the spell was cast)

**Author's Note:**

> Or: Because of course, the woman Felix crushes on is the one who runs into him with her scooter on her first day of work.
> 
> Thank you so much to the Felannie Discord for not only letting me run wild with this incredibly niche, incredibly specific AU, but also offering their own ideas with it! Special shout-out to Kaerra and Tori for their extra NorCal knowledge, and Tori again for beta-reading.

Felix doesn’t dislike San Francisco. There are a lot of things in life he dislikes, but the strange, foggy city that life had decided to plop him in isn’t one of them. He’s not exactly a native, but growing up only a few minutes south means that he’s familiar with the area regardless. There are benefits to living here: his friends are nearby, he likes not having to drive everywhere, and the multiculturalism of the food is definitely a plus. He can’t imagine any sane person willingly moving to an area without decent Pad Thai. 

Besides, there are only so many cities he could really thrive in as a computer programmer. By a strange and aggravating turn of events, the job offer that had been the most promising after graduation was at the one offered to him by Dimitri Blaiddyd, who had turned from Felix’s childhood friend to the king of his own little tech company.

(Fate, it seems, had decided to absolutely dunk on Felix.)

Still, he’s lucky to be able to afford a flat so close to the office; the real estate downtown isn’t cheap so he’d had to cut corners, but the sparse, minimalist aesthetic of his studio apartment is enough for him. Felix’s never been much to worry about unnecessary features. 

He likes to walk to work every day, usually with one Airpod in, the route so familiar he could probably make it with his eyes closed. He knows the shortcuts well, knows which bakeries over sweeten their coffee and which get it just right, and knows to step over the pothole on the curb right outside the office.

This morning, however, just had to be different. 

He’s approaching the office building, same as he always does, when he hears a strange rattling sound. Irritated and confused, Felix takes out his earbud and turns to his right—

—To be immediately hit by what felt like a steel beam to his shins. 

On pure instinct, Felix throws his arms out to stabilize himself (maybe those fifteen years of Wushu classes were worth something after all,  _ dad _ ), and is met with a  _ thing _ colliding against his chest.

Oh no, not  _ thing _ . 

_ Person _ . 

A person who is warm and soft and also screaming directly into his ear.

“What the hell?” is all Felix can muster, voice slightly strained from the sharp pain shooting up his legs.

“I’m so sorry!” The person—a young woman his age—stammers, scrambling to pull herself off of Felix. Babbling, she smooths out her tousled hair with one hand and helps Felix right himself with the other.

“I’m so sorry, really,” she repeats, voice climbing higher and higher with every word. “I’m not used to the city yet, and my car wouldn’t start, so I thought I would take a scooter—”

One glance to the dinged-up Bird scooter at the woman’s feet explains more than any of her rambling could, so Felix brushes off the front of his jacket and grimaces. He truly, truly hates that stupid electric scooter company.

The woman had remained where she was in front of him and didn’t seem likely to bolt, so she probably wasn’t a pickpocket. She looked like a tourist, dressed in a patterned blouse that was entirely too thin for a San Franciscan spring, her eyes wide and her face flushed. Felix would have thought her pretty, if he wasn’t more concerned over whether the bones in his ankles were still whole.

He takes a tentative step forward. It’s kind of painful, but he’s suffered worse before. 

Still. Regardless of whether or not she’d had any other malicious intent, she definitely had made his morning worse. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Felix asks bluntly, lifting the hem of his pants to check for any cuts. Luckily, it seems that the edge of the scooter had been blunt enough that the collision hadn’t broken any skin. Satisfied that he wouldn’t bleed to death on a grime-covered sidewalk, Felix straightens back up to see Scooter Woman with a strange frown on her face; she looked guilty, indignant, and then guilty for being indignant. It was an expression Felix was very familiar with.

“I’m sorry,” the woman repeats. “Oh my gosh, this is so awful. If there’s anything I can do—” 

“Whatever,” Felix says, tucking his earbud back into his ear. “Watch where you’re going.”

With as much dignity as he can muster, Felix hobbles up the steps to the building, and that had been it.

* * *

At least, he thought that had been it. 

“She’s really nice, you know.” 

Felix, only half-paying attention to Ingrid, stabs a leaf of arugula and lets out a noncommittal grunt in response. Fortunately, his friends have known him long enough that they don’t expect good conversation out of him during lunch hour (or any hour, really). He’s free to eat his salad in peace as Sylvain speaks. 

“Who is?”

“The new UX designer,” Ashe says, piping up from Ingrid’s left. “I don’t think she’s been able to meet everyone yet, but you’ll all love her. I’ve been helping her settle in—she’s from out of state, and she seemed kind of overwhelmed when she got into the office…”

“Aw, I get that. First days are hard,” Ingrid says. The genuine sympathy of her words is offset by the fact that she’s currently trying to sneak an attack on Ashe’s sweet potato fries.

Ashe scooches his fries towards Ingrid. “Yeah, definitely! She said something about her car not starting this morning. Talk about bad luck.”

Ingrid’s talking about how nice it is to have a new face in the office when something clicks in Felix’s mind. 

“Hold on,” Felix says. “This new designer. Is she short and ginger? With hair like—”

Felix curls his fingers into upward hooks, mimicking the curve of a hair flip. 

“Yes, that’s her. Have you met her already?” Ingrid asks. 

“Kind of,” Felix says, and doesn’t elaborate.

Sylvain presses Felix to explain himself, but the dark-haired man ignores his friend. After it becomes clear that Felix isn’t going to say anything else, the other three change the subject to a new exhibition in the SFMOMA. 

Felix reaches down and rubs the rapidly developing bruise on his ankle. 

* * *

And indeed, here Scooter Woman is, standing in the front of their open-plan office next to Ashe. Her hair looks neater from how windswept it had been in the morning, falling around her shoulders in loose orange waves. She also looks a great deal more relaxed, dressed in a cardigan that's slightly too big for her. Felix recognizes it as Ingrid’s and guesses that Scooter Woman borrowed it—the office AC could be intense when you weren’t used to it. 

“So, these desks here is where our amazing programmers work,” Felix hears Ashe say. Sylvain, who’s always looking for an excuse to distract himself from actually working, looks up from his desk and grins.

“Aw, Ashe. You flatter me,” the redheaded man says, tucking his hands behind his head. “Who’s that next to you? Ah, you must be the new UX designer everyone’s talking about.” 

“That’s me! I’m Annette Dominic. It’s so nice to meet you!” she says, and she and Sylvain shake hands. Felix scowls and ducks behind his monitor, hoping he won’t have to introduce himself to her. Meeting new people was far from his forte, and they had hardly made a good first impression.

Before Sylvain had a framed photo on his desk and Ingrid had a ring on her left hand, he probably would have continued with a whole barrage of compliments. Now, he simply introduces himself to her and asks her how she’s liking the office. 

If Sylvain had ended there, Felix would have been happy—proud, even, for how his best friend had evolved from a shameless flirt to a dedicated fiance. But of course, Sylvain has to go and direct Annette’s attention to Felix, therefore evaporating any goodwill Felix had for his friend.

Annette’s face goes from fair to stark white when she sees Felix, and she lets out a tiny “Oh no.” 

Sylvain looks from Annette to Felix and back again.

“Do you two, uh.” Sylvain clears his throat, and throws Felix a look with entirely too much implication. “Know each other?”

Yep. Felix’s goodwill towards Sylvain is gone. All of it. 

Annette’s hands fly to her face as she stammers out a string of utterly incomprehensible words. Felix turns to Annette, sees the way her face is changing color  _ again _ (from white to a tomato red), and takes decisive action.

“We ran into each other this morning,” Felix says curtly. 

Look, Felix is self-aware—he knows his entire person contains enough salt to preserve meat—but he’s also not vengefully mean. Bitter, maybe, but he’s grown past being dickish for the sake of being dickish. There’s no point telling the whole office about Annette’s collision when she already seems so painfully out-of-place. 

To his bemusement, however, the new girl looks frustrated rather than grateful. Huh.

Well, that’s not his problem. Felix has already done his Good Deed™ of the day (second, if you include not murdering Sylvain), so he turns back to his desk without another word to Annette. 

Ashe continues introducing Annette to the rest of the programmers, but Felix puts his earbuds before they can reach his desk. 

* * *

“Hey. Felix, right?” 

A cup of coffee is not-so-delicately placed on the table in front of him.

Felix looks up from his tablet, a dark eyebrow raised in confusion and mild annoyance. His novel was only just now getting good. 

Out of all the people he would expect to come up to him during break and give him coffee, Annette Dominic is absolutely last on the list. Felix hadn’t spoken to her at all since she started a week ago; they make accidental eye-contact sometimes, sure, but that’s the extent of their interaction.

“What,” Felix says. It’s more of a statement than a question.

Annette shuffles her feet and moves to tuck a wayward strand of hair being her ear. Her hair is up today, arranged into a very round bun on the top of her head that reminds Felix of a tangerine. It bobs as she talks.

“It’s coffee,” she says.

“I can see that,” Felix says, turning off his tablet. “Why are you showing it to me?” 

“No, it’s  _ for _ you!” Annette says, hurriedly pulling out the barstool next to Felix’s and sitting down. She stares at him expectantly. 

Her eyes, Felix notices, are kind of huge. 

“Okay. Why?” Felix says. He still hasn’t moved to take the cup.

He doesn’t recognize the cafe on the logo—it’s probably from whatever neighborhood Annette lives in, and he’s not really sure what her intentions are. Sometimes Cyril or Lysithea, intrepid interns they are, will go out for drink runs, but Dimitri had made it clear that they were  _ not _ to be abused for coffee.

Annette is not an intern. Her title, according to the company newsletter, is UI/UX designer. Felix has no idea what she’s doing.

She huffs, puffing her cheeks out. “Because of. You know.” 

Felix furrows his brow. “...No?”

“The—” Annette looks over her shoulder for possible eavesdroppers (despite the fact that they’re the only ones in the breakroom), and leans in towards Felix. Not close enough to invade his personal space, but close enough that he can smell what he thinks is the vanilla from her shampoo. 

“The  _ accident _ . You know, the—last week? When I—” she drops her voice to a whisper. “ _ Hit you with my scooter _ .”

Felix crosses his arms on the table. “Honestly, I had already forgotten about that.” 

Sure, he had had bright purple bruises on his shins for the remainder of that week, but his body always tended to get over injuries quickly, and every day brought new things for Felix to be annoyed by. The collision had been irritating in the moment, but he had bigger things going on in his life. 

Instead of assuaging Annette, like he had thought they would, his words only seem to aggravate her further.

“What? How could you just  _ forget _ ?” she asks. 

“Should I have scrapbooked the moment?” Felix asks dryly. 

“Did you tell anyone?”

“Why would I tell anyone?”

“Are you messing with me?” Annette says, raising her hands to her face. “Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. I can’t believe I start an exciting new job in San Francisco and the first thing I do is  _ completely ruin my life _ .” 

Felix moves to speak again, but Annette pushes her seat back and shoots up.

(She’s very energetic, he thinks. She should really look into joining Dimitri’s hiking weekends.)

“You just wait, Felix. Nice try, but—but I don’t give up so easily!”

With another huff, Annette turns tail and flounces out of the breakroom, the cheerful bouncing of her bun severely diminishing any intimidating factors her words might have had.

What the hell was that?

Felix checks his watch: he still has a few minutes left in his break. Looking over. the table, he sees that Annette didn’t take the coffee with her. It really must have been for him.

_ What a strange person _ , he thinks.

Felix supposes he could get up and walk it over to her desk, but he’s not sure that would be worth the extra hassle. Besides, Annette seemed oddly insistent that he have it. 

(She’s very intense, but he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing.)

Well, it would be a shame to toss a perfectly good cup of coffee. With a sigh, Felix brings the cup to his lips, takes a gulp—

And nearly spits all over the table, gagging at the taste of what he can only assume is pure sugar syrup.

* * *

Discounting their strange coffee interaction, Annette is a very pleasant person—almost  _ impossibly _ pleasant, in fact. She dresses up for work in colorful headbands and swishy skirts and is always eager to learn a skill or meet a new person. She makes friends in the office spectacularly fast; Felix sees her chatting with Sylvain and Ingrid one day and feels almost replaced. 

The one thing Felix doesn’t understand is why she clams up whenever he walks by. It doesn’t matter who she’s talking to—she’ll see him and then become incredibly flustered. Felix knows he isn’t the most approachable guy (Sylvain had once told him that he has resting bitch face), but he’s at a loss for what Annette could be trying so desperately to conceal from him

One Tuesday morning, for example, Felix walks past the areas of desks where the designers work to see Annette talking with Bernadetta. This itself is only odd because of Bernadetta’s shyness, but Annette seems like the kind of person who’s easy to talk to. Felix waves to Bernadetta. He’s grown to befriend the shy artist during her residency at their company, both being fans of an obscure YA book series.

Rather than return his wave, however, Bernadetta does something strange. 

She  _ giggles _ .

And  _ Annette _ ’s the one who shoots up from her desk the moment she sees Felix, blushing and waving her arms around wildly. She’s saying something to Bernadetta—under her breath, so Felix can’t hear a word, but she’s clearly nervous. With everything he knows about the two women, Felix can’t help but feel like it should be the other way around. 

“A-Ah, good morning, Felix! Annette, it would be nice to talk more later—if you’re okay with that,” Bernadetta says.The purple-haired woman offers them a nervous smile before dashing away to her studio. 

With her gone, Felix turns to Annette. Wordlessly, he takes the (still hot, untouched) cup of coffee out of its tray and sets it on her desk. It’s the third one this week.

“Take it back,” he says. Annette shakes her head and pushes it back towards him.

“No, it’s for you! For the—”

“—Scooter, I know. You have to stop. No amount of coffee will make me forget it at this point, especially not this sugary crap,” Felix says, tossing the now empty paper tray into the recycling. “It’s permanently etched into my brain at this point.”

“You’re kidding,” Annette says, looking disappointed. “Not even a little bit?”

“I did forget. But you keep reminding me. Also,” he says. “You need to move your binders. One of the other designers told me there was something wrong with this printer again and I need to fix it.” 

“Oh! Yeah, of course,” Annette says, and the candy-colored binders clatter in her arms as she hurriedly scoops them up. She keeps them clutched to her chest, as if Felix would snatch them away if she left them unattended. (Which would never happen. Felix, should he be forced to use analog materials, sticks strictly to black and blue.)

Fixing the printer is easy. All Felix has to do is enter his passcode, press a button, and wait for it to restart.

As the machine whirrs and beeps, Felix’s eyes wander over Annette’s desk and land on the curious trinket next to her stapler.

“What’s the cat?”

“Huh?” Annette blinks at him, before following his gaze to her desk. “Oh! That’s my tape dispenser. My roommate bought it for me in Japantown before my first day of work. Isn’t it cute?”

Annette sets her binders down on her lap and reaches for the tape dispenser. It honestly doesn’t look anything like a tape dispenser to Felix; if anything, it reminds him of the lucky cat statues he sees at older Chinese restaurants, except stationary and a little smaller. It’s a pastel cream color, tying in to the rest of Annette’s decor.

“...Where does the tape come from?” Felix asks. He glances back at the printer just to check on it; still rebooting. 

“You have to press it’s head back like this, and then pull on its tail…” 

Annette seems excited to demonstrate. She lifts off the cat’s head to reveal a standard roll of tape nestled inside its body. Felix raises an eyebrow.

“So you have to decapitate it every time you want tape?” Felix asks. Annette looks down at the dispenser, aghast.

“You can’t phrase it like that, that makes me sound so evil. I do put the head back on afterwards. I re-capitate it!” Annette says, and there’s so much passionate insistence in her tone that it makes the corners of Felix’s mouth quirk up. 

“That’s cute,” Felix says. It’s a phrase that rarely comes out of his mouth, said genuinely even less so, but something about Annette makes it nothing less than factual.

Annette opens her mouth to say something, but it’s then that the printer screen flashes that it’s finished restarting.

Felix drops his gaze down, letting the fringe of his hair hide his expression. “Printer’s fixed,” he says brusquely. 

“Oh!” Annette says, looking surprised. “Oh, thanks.” 

“Yeah,” Felix says, and because he’s not really sure how to respond to thanks earnestly (especially not with this foreign, mushy feeling squirming around in his chest), so he just gathers his things and stalks back to his desk as quickly as possible.

* * *

There’s zen music playing and the studio smells like eucalyptus, but Felix is having a hard time finding his inner peace like this, spread out on the mat with every muscle in his body screaming. 

“Dude, you have to relax,” Sylvain mutters, which relaxes Felix even less.

“Shut up,” Felix hisses. He makes another effort to reach his toes and fails spectacularly, settling on gripping his ankles instead.

“That’s good, everyone,” Ingrid says from up front, where she’s effortlessly twisted like a pretzel. “Don’t forget to inhale through your nose, and then exhale through your mouth.” 

There’s a chorus of breaths throughout the studio. Felix stares at his reflection in the mirror and wills himself to calm down. Ingrid had started teaching yoga classes in her free time, and she had asked some of her friends to attend a session. Felix had reluctantly agreed, figuring that after so many years in martial arts, yoga would be completely doable. 

His body thought otherwise. It was angry that he always skipped stretching after exercise, and it was choosing  _ now _ as the time to let its complaints be known. 

“It’s okay if you can’t reach your toes. Grabbing onto any part of your leg is fine, as long as you can get a good stretch going in your hamstrings. Just don’t let your body tense up,” Ingrid says. 

“You  _ do  _ seem very tense, Felix,” Dorothea says from his other side. She’s not any closer to achieving the pose than Felix is, but she doesn’t seem to care nearly as much. Her yoga mat matches her spandex workout outfit perfectly. Felix wants to scream.

“Of course I’m tense,” Felix snaps, straining to keep his voice down so as to not bother Ingrid’s actual students. “This is so fucking painful. How does Ingrid do this to relax?”

“You get better at it with practice,” Sylvain says as he bends forward, and  _ oh _ , he’s just showing off now, that  _ fucker _ . Felix sits back up just to glare at Sylvain.

“Aw, does she teach you when you’re at home? That’s so sweet!” Dorothea says. 

“Yeah! Well, we try to  _ diversify _ our  _ workout routine _ , so—”

Sylvain cuts himself off with a yelp, courtesy of Felix jabbing him in the ribs. Ingrid looks up from the front of the room and stares right at them, looking like it’s taking every ounce of effort in her body not to roll her eyes. 

“Row in the back, is everything alright?” she asks. Her smile says “calm yoga instructor,” but her eyes say “don’t you  _ dare _ ruin this for me.” 

“Never better, instructor!”

“Oh, yes, we’re having a lot of fun.”

“We’re fine,” Felix grits out. Ingrid doesn’t look totally convinced, but she’s forced to divert her attention when a student near the front of the room calls for her help. 

Felix gets a blessed one minute (a whole sixty seconds) of silence before Sylvain speaks again.

“Are you sure yoga is the reason you’re tense, Felix?” he asks. ‘“Is there anything else on your mind?”

Felix scowls. “I don’t know. The economy. Politics. My dad wanting me home for his Memorial Day barbeque despite the fact that we both know he can’t grill worth a damn. Pick one and run with it.” 

“Yes, those are all very stressful. But are you sure there isn’t something else? Something a little more...orange and bubbly?”

Felix has no idea what Sylvain is trying to get at. “Fanta?”

It’s Sylvain’s turn to poke Felix, who at least manages to keep quiet enough that Ingrid doesn’t notice their scuffle. 

“Oh, come on. You thought I wouldn’t notice Annette asking everyone about you?” Sylvain asks.

Felix nearly slams his head back against his mat. “What?”

“Ooh,” Dorothea says, her eyes lighting up the way they always do when she smells an opportunity to Meddle (something she and Sylvain have in common). “Who’s Annette?” 

“A new designer in our office who moved here from Michigan a few weeks ago. She’s super friendly, and she’s been trying to get to know more about Felix ever since she started. She’s been asking me stuff like ‘What’s that guy’s name?’ or ‘Do you know if he likes coffee?’ or ‘Has he said anything about me to you?’” Sylvain chuckles. “It’s really cute.” 

“Aw, that is  _ adorable _ . And Felix, you didn’t even have the courtesy to properly introduce yourself to her?” Dorothea scolds. 

“No, that’s—” Felix struggles with his words. It sounds like Annette’s just trying to make sure he hasn’t said anything about their collision. He had already  _ told _ her he wouldn’t be telling anyone. What kind of insufferable gossip does she take him for?

Dorothea abandons all pretense of doing yoga and leans across Felix’s mat to better face Sylvain. “Okay, spill. What’s she like? Tell me absolutely everything about her.”

“Dorothea,” Felix sputters. “What the hell?”

“She dresses like a Pinterest blogger. In a good way. She’s really short. Like, comes up to Felix’s chin, probably,” Sylvain says, entirely too eager to play along with Dorothea. 

“Aw, so tiny!”

“You guys are being really weird. And creepy. Besides, it’s not anything like you’re thinking,” Felix says.

“What is it about, then?” Dorothea asks. 

“It’s—” Felix starts, and then stops himself, remembering how badly Annette wants him to keep his mouth closed. “Nothing. It’s none of your business.” 

“Oh, okay, I get it. It’s absolutely  _ nothing _ ,” Sylvain says, throwing Dorothea a wink. The only thing that keeps Felix from standing up and fist-fighting Sylvain is the knowledge that Ingrid would eat him alive if he disrupted her class. 

Felix settles for cursing wildly in his head as his friends act like a pair of incorrigible middle-school girls, snickering at his expense all throughout the remainder of the class. 

* * *

When he stops by a cafe before work the next Monday, however, Felix asks for two drinks.

The first is his usual: a medium black coffee, no sugar, no milk. Extra hot. 

The second is his guess for what someone like Annette (who ordered him glorified sugary milk, who wears flower-shaped earrings to match her flower-shaped necklace, who has a bullet journal decorated in colorful cartoon birds) drinks: a large iced strawberry mocha with extra cream, extra sugar, and extra strawberry bits.

He delivers it to her desk as soon as he gets into the office. Annette’s clearly surprised; she takes it from him with an expression not unlike his when  _ she _ had given him coffee. Felix can’t help but notice that her sweater is exactly the same shade of pink as her drink.

“Sylvain pointed out that I never actually introduced myself. I’m Felix Fraldarius. You already knew that, but whatever,” Felix says stiffly.

“Yes, I did, but thank you. What is this for?” Annette asks. She takes a tentative sip of the coffee, and Felix feels pleased despite himself when her face widens into a broad smile at the taste. 

“I don’t like owing people for stuff,” Felix says. “We’re even now.”

Annette’s smile immediately falls into a pout. “No, the first coffee was supposed to make us even.” 

“Stuff like that doesn’t really matter to me. You should really stop trying with the coffee,” Felix says. Blunt, yes, but he’s really not sure how else to get it across to Annette she doesn’t have anything to make up to him.

“You don’t like coffee?” Annette asks. Felix raises an eyebrow and wiggles the cup in his own hands. Annette flushes lightly—now her drink matches her sweater  _ and _ her face.

“Coffee’s fine. I prefer boba,” Felix says. 

Annette tilts her head. “Boba?” 

Right. Sylvain had said she was from the Midwest. “Bubble tea. Tapioca. You know, tea with chewy orbs in it?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, bubble tea! I’ve never had it. I’ve always wanted to try it. It looks so pretty on Instagram,” Annette sighs, clutching her drink closer to her body. Felix takes a sip of his own coffee. 

“That’s sad. You should go to Time Leaf in the Marina District. They’re good,” Felix says.

“Marina District...I’ve been there! Is that where the ocean is?” 

“This city is on a peninsula. Everywhere is ‘where the ocean is’.” 

Annette scrunches up her nose. “I know that.” 

“The Marina District is north of here, near Fort Mason. You just go up from SoMa—” 

“That’s where we are right now, right?” Annette asks, and Felix nods.

“Right. You go from SoMa to Market Street, and that’s the way to the Marina District,” Felix says, picturing the map clearly in his mind.

“Market Street...Is that north or south of SoMa?” 

Felix stares at her. “SoMa. South of Market.” 

“...Oh,” Annette says. Usually, hearing people be clueless about the city makes Felix want to break into hives, but for some reason, it doesn’t bother him as much when Annette does it. Maybe it’s because he knows she’s trying so damn hard. 

“It’s kind of hard to find. I can just take you there after work today,” Felix says, speaking quickly before his brain has the opportunity to stop his mouth.

Annette stares at Felix.

“Are you sure?” she asks, and her eyes are glinting with something he can’t name.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. Just to make sure you don’t end up walking into the ocean or something,” Felix says, trying to keep his tone neutral despite the fact that his head is screaming. Felix wants to catapult someone into the sun. Maybe himself.

But before he can start backpedaling, or brush off what he said as just a careless comment, Annette nods. Her jaw is set with the kind of determination Felix usually only sees in people making life-changing decisions.

“Okay, let’s go together,” Annette says, and Felix’s fate is sealed.

He meets her by the elevator after work, his messenger bag slung around his shoulders, her tote purse around hers. They’re not the last to leave, and so some of their co-workers see them leaving together. Oddly enough, however, no one seems surprised to see them side-by-side; if anything, everyone from Lysithea to Ashe to  _ Dimitri _ gives him an indulgent smile, as if they’d expected it all along. Annette doesn’t seem to notice—that, or it’s all in his head. 

Felix’s hackles raise when he sees them looking at him, but he’s not even sure what there is to be defensive about. He and Annette are just two coworkers getting boba after work. No one ever bats an eye when he goes with Sylvain, and this isn’t any different. 

Annette seems to have learned how to dress for the city’s unpredictable weather a little better; the first few weeks at the company, she alternated between dressing too lightly and coming to work in a full puffer jacket. Felix wears virtually the same thing everyday: a button-up rolled up at the sleeves and a fleece. The weather’s mellow enough today for him to keep his jacket off. 

The bus ride to the Marina District is fast and relatively uncomplicated; the only hold up is when Annette holds up the line paying her bus fare in quarters. Felix gets the impression that Annette wants to make small talk with him, but she gets a call from her roommate as soon as they sit down and is occupied for the majority of their trip. Felix isn’t sure if he’s relieved or disappointed. 

“Here,” Felix says when they step off the bus and arrive in front of Time Leaf. The tea-shop is small and modern looking, with a hand-painted sign above the doorway and a well-maintained floral planter. The storefront is all glass, and Felix can see that it isn’t very busy inside. That makes sense; places like this are usually grab and go. 

“Oh, it’s so nice!” Annette says, smiling as she approaches the shop. “I can see why you like this place.” 

“Yeah,” Felix says. He gives her another minute of ooh-ing and aah-ing at the storefront before he strides over to the door and pulls it open for them. Annette thanks him when he lets her enter first. The interior is every bit as clean and polished as the outside. The walls are decorated with a mural painted by a local artist, and all the furniture in the cafe is made out of sleek bamboo.

“Oh wow, they have their menu on flatscreens! What do you usually get, Felix?” Annette asks, gaze locked onto the menu as she speaks. She even raises herself onto the tips of her toes, as if the extra inch or two to her eye line will somehow help her better decide a drink. 

“Four-Spice Blend,” Felix says, and he’s amused despite himself when Annette reads the description of the bitter, spicy tea and pulls a face. 

“Peppercorn in tea, really? Aren’t the tapioca balls sweet?” Annette asks.

“Yes? They’re made out of brown sugar.” 

“How does that taste good with spicy tea, then?”

“I don’t get boba in my drink,” Felix says, and Annette lets out a gasp. 

“How could you do that to your poor tea? Leave it all alone and boba-less?”

Felix raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you say you’ve never had boba before?”

“Well, not yet, but that makes it even worse,” Annette says, throwing him a lopsided smile over her shoulder. “Just think of all those poor Midwestern kids like me, dreaming for a taste of actual bubble tea, while you’re surrounded with shops and you don’t even get anything properly sweet! It’s heartbreaking.” 

Felix rolls his eyes, but he’s fighting off a grin of his own as he does so. “Just order something.” 

Annette gives the menu another glance before making her way over to the register, Felix trailing a step or two behind her in line. 

“Hi! Can I get the Sweet-Apple Blend with whole milk and extra sweetness, with boba in it, please,” Annette says, and she takes the briefest of seconds to glance back at Felix and grin. “And a Four-Spice Blend, no sugar, no boba, no milk. All on this card, please.” 

Felix, who had been idly scrolling through his phone, jolts up. “What?” 

He can see it happening in horrible slow-motion: Annette (who’s looking  _ far _ too smug about doing something so  _ pleasant _ ) pulling her credit card out of her wallet, the stupid teenager manning the register reaching out for it without any consideration for the shock on Felix’s face. 

Luckily, Felix has been blessed with two things in his life.

The first is quick reflexes. 

The second is Apple Pay. 

In one fluid motion, Felix strides up to the cashier, bats Annette’s card away from the chip reader with one hand, and holds his phone up to the payment terminal with the other.

The terminal flashes blue. His payment goes through.

The teen gives Felix their order number and then scurries away, probably to avoid any potential fallout over the situation.

“Why would you do that?” Annette asks, her face cupped in her hands, She looks horrified.

“Why would  _ you _ do that?” Felix shoots back.

“I’m trying to make things up to you! I’ve been trying to make it up to you since I’ve been here, but this morning you told me you didn’t actually like coffee that much, and I just…” Annette lets out a miserable noise. “I just feel so bad.” 

Something clicks in Felix’s brain, and he raises a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Christ, are you still on buying my silence?”

“Yes! I mean, I’ve been asking everyone around the office about what they thought you would like, and—well, a lot of people said swords, actually, but I don’t know where to buy one in San Francisco—” 

“Japantown,” Felix says quickly, but he lets Annette finish speaking.

“And it really was just about making sure you didn’t say anything to anyone,” Annette says, and oh God, she’s starting to tear up. “But then you were so... _ cool _ about the whole thing that I felt even worse. I really wanted everything to be okay between us.” 

Felix stares at her. 

Part of him is annoyed that Annette is still so focused on their meeting despite his multiple reassurances that he really didn’t care all that much. The other half of him is...strangely endeared to just how persistent she was about making him happy.

(Also, no one’s ever called him “cool” before.)

“Do you really think I offered to bring you here because I’m still bothered about that whole scooter thing?” Felix asks. 

Annette manages to hold back her tears enough to keep from fully crying, but Felix reaches over the counter and nabs a napkin for her anyways. She takes it from him with a watery hiccup. 

“You didn’t invite me so I could buy you boba?” Annette asks.

“No. I did not, because that would be really stupid and shallow of me to do,” Felix says. “And Dimitri has a lot of flaws, but he at least pays me enough that I can afford my own drinks.” 

Annette giggles at his quip, the napkin balled up in her fist. She’s calmed back down; color is returning to her face, and when she speaks again, she sounds more like the bright woman she usually is.

“So,” Annette says slowly, the corners of her mouth curling upwards, “you invited me just because you wanted to hang out?”

Felix redirects his gaze to the ceiling before saying anything else, finding that his ability to form coherent words is dampened with her smiling at him like that. “It sounds stupid when you put it that way,” he says finally. 

It’s not a no.

The barista calls out his number just then, and Felix glances over to the counter to see their two drinks: one with the familiar dark amber of his Four-Spice tea, and the other her creamy Sweet-Apple milk tea. Annette beams when the barista hands her her drink, but her expression falls into something more contemplative as she examines the cup.

“You know, it would be a shame to drink this while walking home. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it properly that way,” Annette says.

Felix hands Annette one of his straws. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Annette says, and she tilts her head at the empty table next to them. “Would you want to—”

“I guess,” is all Felix says, but he’s already pulling out a chair. 

* * *

The next day, Felix walks to work, one Airpod in, dressed in a button up shirt and fleece vest like he always is. He walks the steps up to the office. He takes the elevator. He punches in and pointedly ignores Dimitri’s beach hiking e-vite. It’s a normal day.

Except that this morning, there’s a cat on his desk.

“I thought I made it clear that you should stop trying to make things up to me,” Felix says, setting the cat tape dispenser on Annette’s desk. There hadn’t been a name tag attached to the giant bow the cat had been wrapped in, but it hadn’t taken a lot of sleuthing to figure out who the gift was from.

Annette just grins and lifts the cat tape dispenser off of her desk, immediately pressing it back into his hands. 

“Felix, you’re being silly. This isn’t to make it up to you,” Annette says. He’s never noticed before, but her voice is lilting and sweet, almost as if she’s speaking in a melody. Felix looks down to the cat figurine in his hands. It’s identical to the one that Annette keeps on her desk, little smiling face and all, except that this one is black and hers is cream.

“Then why are you giving this to me?” he asks. 

“Just because you said you liked it. And I wanted to get you something because I like you. That’s all,” Annette says, shrugging one of her shoulders in a fluid motion. She speaks evenly, but a slight pink to her cheeks betrays her nervousness. For some reason, that endears Annette to Felix more than any unfaltering confidence ever could.

“That’s so—” Felix says, and for once in life, he can’t think of anything intelligible to say in response. It feels as if someone’s pulled the rug out from under his feet, but he can’t even be bothered about it. “...Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” Annette says. She’s beaming at him, her expression so pure and earnest and honestly, kind of dorky that Felix’s heart tap dances in his chest. 

Felix does return to his own desk, and he does get back to work eventually—

And if anyone has any questions about the black cat set between his stapler and his name plate, well, they’ll just have to figure it out themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> I might write more one-shots set in this universe whenever I have the time. Let me know if you would be interested in seeing more, and feel free to leave a kudos or comment if you're feeling up to it! ;) 
> 
> I also drew some sketches of Annette and Felix (and some others) that you can find [on my Twitter.](https://twitter.com/elindadraws/status/1331417221688508418)


End file.
